I had an interesting day at the office in the  round the island race on saturday.

As you probably know it was warm and hazy with a 10-15 knot gradient NE. My
previous notes suggested stronger winds from the middle to Hampshire shore
in W Solent  - with a veer to ENE at Hurst , and so it proved. Similarly
once past Freshwater  there was  a gusty band of stronger backed wind
inshore - with the wind being markedly less and veered even a cable more
offshore , all getting more marked as the land heated. It made me look good!

After St Cats it went very light and by 1400 I decided to risk the adverse
tide offshore to seek the sea breeze  that I fellt sure would come despite
the absence of marked indicators such as cumulus (else why else would the
wind die) And at 1430  I got it. I was 1 NM offshore - and I had watched it
come in from further out - so cannot answer the question where it landed -
other than to say more than 1 mile. Also it came from 180 and reached 8
knots for a  short while.

So reaching past the fleet wallowing inshore fellt pretty good - except that
one or two were close as the breeze rolled in to release them - and as i
approached Dunnose it backed , fell off and died!

So the fleet came up to me and most tried to get inshore where there were
some tiny zephyrs from a residual NE wind.  I reckoned that past experience
brought a feeble SW sea breeze across Sandown Bay later on , so headed
offshore again ( or attempted to !)

Well , I was right. But the bastard wind "landed " along the rhumb from
Dunnose to Whitecliff  ( or possibly in a curve matching the bay) - started
out SE and  eveventually swung round to SSW - but never more than 5 knots.
So the boats INSHORE got it first - and ended up at a hotter angle  , and
the "carpet" rolled in , and  OUT to me 15 mts later . Goodbye race! Once
past Bembridge( and thankfully with the engine on as it was shortened) the
wind became SSE ( again light).

So we had individual  mini  sea breezes , and  St Cats to Dunnose is a
better sea breeze coast than Sandown Bay - at least in the poor conditions
we had on saturday ( I gather the NE  stayed all day in the Solent) - and
the sea breeze therefore was  earlier and stronger and landed further out
than that in Sandown Bay . My track took me at most 3 miles from the shore
at the apex of Sandown Bay - and i would estimate it landed .75 miles
further in.When i got it tho I was nearer to Dunnose and so 1.5 miles from
the shoreline there. Presumably a strong seabreeze ,as you might  get with a
NW wind, might land 5 miles out?

If you ever get any info i would be interested to hear it.